Facebook admitted they can't track all their advertisers to guarantee user safety. That's like a bar saying they're too crowded to card people.

Facebook has been around for 13 years. But until now, the American people haven’t given them credit — or demanded responsibility — for the influence they wield over society.

Let’s start.

Last month, Sandy Parakilas, a former operations manager with Facebook, shared her experience working for a company where collecting data for ad sales is more important than protecting its users’ information. She recounts an example of a third-party developer using this information to create unauthorized Facebook profiles for real children, and Facebook executives took little action in response. As a former employee, her story offers an especially scathing rebuke to the company.

As Parakilas pointed out, Facebook has no business interest to regulate its advertisers or safeguard its customer data from abuse. That’s because its incredibly successful advertising model is built on automation that serves up vast amounts of consumer data, rewards emotionally engaging content and makes it easy for anyone to spend a few cents on an ad.

We have seen the damage done from the $100,000 worth of Facebook ads purchased by a Russian troll farm before the 2016 election. Their goals — to misuse user data to spread inflammatory propaganda and spark division — were more than met.

Yet Facebook didn’t notice Russia’s divisive ad buys for nearly a year. Colin Stretch, Facebook’s general counsel, recently acknowledged in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee that the company could not possibly monitor or track each of its five million advertisers.

The situation is akin to a popular bar saying they are just too crowded to card customers for underage drinking. We wouldn’t allow another global company, such as McDonald’s, to complain they sell too many hamburgers to check the quality of each one, especially when they know that one in every 10,000 sickens a customer.

So why do we hold Facebook and other social media companies to a lower standard of responsibility than we would in any other industry?

The stakes of social media are higher than a bad burger. With the Russia investigation, we can see clearly that Facebook plays an important role in our democracy. It’s a space to spark conversations, share news and build communities around common interests or beliefs. And it’s built entirely on our personal data. That’s a lot of influence for one organization, and it’s a power that will be exploited over and over again until Facebook commits to a process for full human oversight to enforce its content and advertising policies.

Facebook has already committed to more transparent political advertising, and to hiring an additional 10,000 people to work in security by the end of 2018. They’ve also promised to hire 1,000 more employees to review ads, and 3,000 to review shocking or violent content.

That’s a start, but it’s not enough. To protect the integrity of the social network, Facebook needs to also commit to verifying accounts and preventing fake users from spreading vitriol or buying ads. And they need to have a sufficient staff to actually hold advertisers to their clear ad policies and protect their users.

Facebook sells an incredible amount of advertising, and it will take significant resources to apply the same quality controls that we expect in any other industry. But we shouldn’t accept that as an excuse. We’ve been giving them the benefit of the doubt for years, and it’s time we stopped.

It’s up to us, their users, to make our voice heard. Facebook earned $10.14 billion in ad revenue in the third quarter of 2017, and it’s worth $508 billion. It’s insulated from traditional market forces, and even Congressional inquiries and regulation can only go so far.

But it will listen to its user base. Let’s require accountability for its paid advertising.

Fast-food companies have carefully analyzed their supply chain, shipment and refrigeration policies to ensure food doesn’t spoil and cause sickness. Many bars card everyone who appears to be under 30, just to be safe. And as a former newspaper publisher, I can tell you that we turned away money on numerous occasions when we didn't know exactly who was the real purchaser of the print or digital ad. We made it policy not to work with accounts that couldn’t be verified.

Digital media and social media have reshaped the way we interact with each other and spread information. Let’s stop treating these companies as the new kids on the block and giving them a free pass when unacceptable content, campaigns and advertising slips through.

They can handle the responsibility of consistent quality control. And we, the American people, deserve nothing less.

Brian Tierney is the CEO of Brian Communications and is the former publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer.